^ On
a 23 January: 3268 Beginning of 2nd Julian Period.2010 In a press conference at the Vatican, the Secretary
of the Pontifical
Council for Social Comunications, Monsignor Paul
Tighe [12 Feb 1958~] presents
the Message
(postdated to 24 January 2010) of Pope Benedict
XVI [16 Apr 1927~] in advance of the 44th World Day for Social Communications
(to be held on 16 May 2010) [scroll up for the original in Italian,
down for the translations into French, German, Spanish, and Portuguese].
This being the Year
for Priests (19 Jun 2009 - 11 Jun 2010), the pope recommends that priests
use in their apostolate digital media such as images, videos, animated features,
blogs, and websites; and that seminarians be educated in their use. —(100123)2006 Alan J. Crotzer, Black,
is freed from prison after postconviction DNA testing proved his innocence
of being one of the three men who, on 08 July 1981 robbed a home in Tampa,
Florida, kidnapped from there of a 38-year-old woman and a 12-year-old girl,
and raped them. On 22 April 22, 1982, Crotzer was convicted. He was sentenced
to 130 years in prison. —(070524)2002 The
US House of Representatives passes 349-23, and sends to the President for
signature, H.R.700, already approved by the Senate, reauthorizing a 1997
law that created the Asian Elephant Conservation Fund and allocating to
it up to $25 million over the next five years. It also reauthorizes the
National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, which since its creation in 1984
has funded more than 5000 projects to conserve fish, wildlife, plants and
their habitats. There are only 35'000 to 50'000 Asian elephants in the wild,
most of them in India, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. The elephants,
which require a shady forest environment, are threatened by poachers and
a growing human population that endangers their habitat.2001
El ex-dictador chileno Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte
se somete a un interrogatorio ante el juez Juan Guzmán Tapia para responder
de las violaciones de los derechos humanos cometidas bajo el régimen dictatorial
que él presidió.

^2001 Now 18, 11-year-old murderer of 5-year-old
is set free.
A youth who spent 5 years in prison for dropping 5-year-old Eric Morse
to his death from a 14th-floor window in on 13 October 1994 is set
free by Juvenile Court judge Ms. Kelly who says that the teen is being
given "a chance at a good and productive life." Several experts testify
that Tony, now 18, is doing well since his conditional
release from prison in October 2000. In addition to receiving intensive
family and individual counseling,Tony is in a mentoring
program and is scheduled to graduate from a Chicago public high school
in June 2001. While Tony
made his final court appearance in the case, the second youth convicted
in the Morse killing, Jessie Rankins (now 17), remains locked up in
a special unit at the maximum security Illinois Youth Center at Joliet.
He is estranged from his family and prone to self-destructive episodes,
including slashing at his arms with shards of broken light bulbs.
He often thinks of suicide. The
divergent paths taken by the two youths, who became the youngest offenders
in Illinois to be sentenced to prison, illustrate the complexities
of dealing with the country's most violent juvenile offenders and
how family support, intelligence levels and a host of other factors
are critical to efforts at rehabilitating them. But it offers no clear
indication about whether the prison system can provide effective treatment
for society's most troubled youths.
Rankins and Tony were aged 10 and 11 when they dropped
Eric Morse to his death from Apartment 1405 in the vacant Ida B. Wells
public housing high-rise (at 3833 S. Langley, Chicago) because he
refused to steal candy for them. The case, which became a national
symbol of the rising tide in violent juvenile crime, outraged state
lawmakers who lowered the age at which juvenile offenders could be
incarcerated to 10. At a lengthy court hearing following the youths'
conviction in 1995, Kelly listened to experts describe how the youths
suffered from "severe childhood conduct disorder" — a mental illness
that left them impulsive, violent and devoid of empathy. And in what
has amounted to a bold experiment, Kelly decided to send the youths
to prison but ordered state officials to provide them with intensive
treatment. Because the youths were convicted in Juvenile Court, they
were given the maximum 5-year probationary sentence but could be held
until their 21st birthday. In
an interview, Rankins said that he suffers from severe mood swings
and depression triggered by the violent prison environment and by
recurring thoughts about the Morse killing. He said that he vividly
recalls holding Morse by his waist near the open window and then watching
the boy fall to his death. Rankins said that he ran down 14 flights
of stairs and cradled the Morse boy's limp body. "He only breathed
one time. Then he stopped," he recalled. While prosecutors said at
trial that the youths were equally responsible for purposely dropping
Eric Morse from the window, Rankins said he had no intention of murdering
the boy. "I know I was part of it," he said. "I was there. I can't
change that. But I know that I wouldn't kill no boy. I know that I
didn't kill him." In releasing
Tony, whose real name (Tyrone) has never been made public
because he was a minor at the time of the killing, Kelly ordered the
media to continue to refrain from publishing his name, his home address
or the name of the organization providing him with treatment. Rankins
was publicly identified in 1999 after he was convicted in an adult
court of sexually assaulting a fellow inmate and sentenced to 9 years
in prison. During their initial
years of incarceration, Tony and Rankins were repeatedly
disciplined for assaulting inmates and threatening staff. But in recent
years, Tony has gained some insight and control over his
violent and obstinate behavior, while Rankins has continued to act
out. In the past year, Rankins spent about six weeks in confinement
for violating prison rules. While Tony, with a below-average
IQ, has had the active support of his mother throughout his incarceration,
Rankins is learning-disabled and has seen his mother only twice and
never seen his father in the past 4 years. Rankins still cannot read.
"He probably wasn't going to benefit from anything the Department
of Corrections gave him no matter how hard they tried," said David
Hirschboeck, a Cook County assistant public defender who represented
Rankins in the murder case. Still, Hirschboeck argues Rankins would
have had a better chance at rehabilitation if Kelly had sent him to
a treatment facility rather than to prison. "He's been in jail for
almost 7 years. What a way to grow up," Hirschboeck said. "I don't
know if residential treatment would have helped him, but we will never
know."

(1) In a ruling that rocks Clinton's Senate impeachment trial, US. District
Court Judge Norma Holloway Johnson decides that Independent Counsel Ken
Starr can force Monica Lewinsky to answer questions from
his staff and allow the 13 House prosecutors to attend the session. In her
ruling, Johnson orders that Lewinsky "allow herself to be debriefed by the
House Managers, to be conducted by the Office of the Independent Counsel
if she so requests, or forfeit her protections under the Immunity Agreement
between Ms. Lewinsky and the OIC." Judge Johnson's ruling comes after the
House prosecutors obtain Starr's help in their attempt to force Lewinsky
to talk to them, contending her immunity agreement requires it. Judge Johnson's
decision — announced just minutes before Clinton's Senate trial resumes
— means Lewinsky will have to meet with House prosecutors. The debriefing
has not yet been scheduled, but could occur with House Judiciary Counsel
David Schippers conducting the interview. WHAM! BAM! Thank you, ma'am

(2) Monica Lewinsky arrives in Washington DC, from Los Angeles
in mid-afternoon. A crush of photographers greet her when she checks into
the fashionable Mayflower Hotel on Connecticut Avenue.

(3) As they did throughout the Senate's questioning, House
prosecutors continue to push senators to allow witnesses,
defending their (now legally-vindicated) decision to ask Independent Counsel
Ken Starr for assistance in compelling Lewinsky to submit to a interview
with the managers. The prosecution is also interested in hearing from
other witnesses, such as Betty Currie and Vernon Jordan. Sources close
to presidential friend Vernon Jordan say that Jordan has made clear through
his attorney he has no intention of voluntarily granting the House Republican
prosecutors an interview. Unlike Lewinsky, Jordan does not have an immunity
agreement with Starr and cannot be compelled to grant the House prosecutors
an interview unless he is subpoenaed. (FULL LIST OF SENATE QUESTIONS,
DAY TWO)

(4) The question-and-answer part of the trial, which include
more than 150 questions over 22 January and today, give senators the opportunity
to submit written queries to the prosecution and defense through Chief
Justice William Rehnquist. "We would be happy to take questions and get
responses to you, consult with the president and Mr. Ruff, if you'd like
to submit them," White House counsel Gregory Craig says. Craig later clarifies
that Clinton's lawyers, not the president himself, would respond. La Monica
causes another media conniption

(5) Former President George Bush worries about Bill
Clinton's apparent "lack of respect" for the presidency, but
is optimistic any embarrassment to the country will be short-lived. "I
have tried to stay out of all the Washington mess," Bush says at the end
of a keynote address to the Safari Club International's 27th annual hunters'
convention. "But I must confess I have been deeply concerned by what appears
to be a lack of respect for the office I was so very proud to hold," he
says. "The presidency — just let me tell you this, because you probably
worry about all this just as I do. Just as my sons and my daughter do.
And as Barbara does," Bush tells the crowd of big-game hunters and conservationists
at the Reno Hilton Hotel-Casino. "Our country is strong and it is resilient.
And the presidency, the office of the presidency, is strong and it is
resilient," he says. "The trials of the present will soon pass away and
once again our country will be respected and strong around the world."
Bush makes no direct reference to impeachment.

^1990 Computer virus creator is convicted Robert Morris, 24, is convicted
for spreading a computer virus via e-mail in November 1988. Morris,
a former Cornell University graduate student, released a virus on
the Internet which disrupted dozens of computers at universities and
government agencies. Morris claimed he designed the program to spread
via security holes in the Internet, but a programming error caused
it to spread much faster than he intended. The is the first time a
computer virus perpetrator is convicted under US federal law. Following
the virus problem in November, several states enacted laws designed
to make computer viruses illegal. .

^1973 Nixon announces Vietnam peace settlement President Nixon announces that
Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho, the chief North Vietnamese negotiator,
have initialled a peace agreement in Paris "to end the war and bring
peace with honor in Vietnam and Southeast Asia." Kissinger and Tho
had been conducting secret negotiations since 1969. After the South
Vietnamese had blunted the massive North Vietnamese invasion launched
in the spring of 1972, Kissinger and the North Vietnamese had finally
made some progress on reaching a negotiated end to the war. However,
a recalcitrant South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu had inserted
several demands into to the negotiations that caused the North Vietnamese
negotiators to walk out of the talks with Kissinger on 13 December.
President Nixon issued an ultimatum to Hanoi to send its representatives
back to the conference table within 72 hours "or else."
The North Vietnamese rejected Nixon's demand and the president ordered
the Christmas Bombing, Operation Linebacker II, a full-scale
air campaign against the Hanoi area. This operation was the most concentrated
air offensive of the war. During the 11 days of the attack, 700 B-52
sorties and more than 1000 fighter-bomber sorties dropped roughly
20'000 tons of bombs, mostly over the densely populated area between
Hanoi and Haiphong. On 28 December, after 11 days of intensive bombing,
the North Vietnamese agreed to return to the talks. When the negotiators
met again in early January, they quickly worked out a settlement.
Under the terms of the agreement, which became known as the Paris
Peace Accords, a cease-fire would begin at 08:00, 28 January, Saigon
time (19:00, 27 January, US Eastern Standard Time). In addition, all
prisoners of war were to be released within 60 days and in turn, all
US. and other foreign troops would be withdrawn from Vietnam within
60 days. With respect to the political situation in South Vietnam,
the Accords called for a National Council of Reconciliation and Concord,
with representatives from both South Vietnamese sides (Saigon and
the National Liberation Front) to oversee negotiations and organize
elections for a new government. The actual document was entitled "An
Agreement Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam" and it was
formally signed on 27 January.

1973 Helgafell, island of Heimaey Iceland erupts for first
time in 7000 years 1972 Entire population of Istanbul
under 24 hour house arrest 1971 62º, Prospect
Creek Camp AK (US record cold air temperature)

^1968 North Korea seizes US spy ship Pueblo The US. intelligence-gathering ship
Pueblo is seized by North Korean naval vessels and charged with
spying and violating North Korean territorial waters. Negotiations to free
the 83-man crew of the US. ship dragged on for nearly a year, damaging the
credibility of and confidence in the foreign policy of President Lyndon
B. Johnson's administration. The capture of the ship and internment of its
crew by North Korea was loudly protested by the Johnson administration.
The US. government vehemently denied that North Korea's territorial waters
had been violated and argued the ship was merely performing routine intelligence
gathering duties in the Sea of Japan. Some US. officials, including Johnson
himself, were convinced that the seizure was part of a larger communist-bloc
offensive, since exactly one week later, communist forces in South Vietnam
launched the Tet Offensive, the largest attack of the Vietnam War. Despite
this, however, the Johnson administration took a restrained stance toward
the incident. Fully occupied with the Tet Offensive, Johnson resorted to
quieter diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis in North Korea.
In December 1968, the commander of the Pueblo,
Capt. Lloyd Bucher, grudgingly signed a confession indicating that his ship
was spying on North Korea prior to its capture. With this propaganda victory
in hand, the North Koreans turned the crew and captain (including one crewman
who had died) over to the United States on 23 December 1968. The Pueblo
incident was a blow to the Johnson administration's credibility, as the
president seemed powerless to free the captured crew and ship. Combined
with the public's perception — in the wake of the Tet Offensive —
that the Vietnam War was being lost, the Pueblo incident resulted
in a serious faltering of Johnson's popularity with the American people.
The crewmen's reports about their horrific treatment at the hands of the
North Koreans during their 11 months in captivity further incensed American
citizens, many of whom believed that Johnson should have taken more aggressive
action to free the captive Americans.
On 23 January 1968, the USS Pueblo a Navy intelligence vessel,
is engaged in a routine surveillance of the North Korean coast when it is
intercepted by North Korean patrol boats. According to US reports, the Pueblo
was in international waters some 25 km from shore, but the North Koreans
turned their guns on the lightly armed vessel and demanded its surrender.
The US sailors attempted to escape, and the North Koreans opened fire, wounding
the commander, Lloyd Bucher, and two others. With capture inevitable, the
US sailors stalled for time, destroying the classified information aboard
while taking further fire. Several more crew members were wounded, including
Duane Hodges, who later died from his injuries. Finally, the Pueblo was
boarded and taken to Wonson. There, the 83-man crew was bound and blindfolded
and transported to Pyongyang, where they were charged with spying within
North Korea's 12-mile territorial limit and imprisoned. It was the biggest
crisis in two years of increased tension and minor skirmishes between the
United States and North Korea. The United States maintained that the Pueblo
had been in international waters and demanded the release of the captive
sailors. With the Tet Offensive raging
3000 km to the south in Vietnam, President Lyndon Johnson ordered no direct
retaliation, but the United States began a military buildup in the area.
North Korean authorities, meanwhile, coerced a confession and apology out
of Pueblo commander Bucher, in which he stated, "I will never again
be a party to any disgraceful act of aggression of this type." The rest
of the crew also signed a confession under threat of torture. The prisoners
were then taken to a second compound in the countryside near Pyongyang,
where they were forced to study propaganda materials and beaten for straying
from the compound's strict rules. In August, the North Koreans staged a
phony news conference in which the prisoners were to praise their humane
treatment, but the Americans thwarted the Koreans by inserting innuendoes
and sarcastic language into their statements. Some prisoners also rebelled
in photo shoots by casually sticking out their middle finger; a gesture
that their captors didn't understand. Later, the North Koreans caught on
and beat the US sailors for a week. On 23 December 1968, exactly 11 months
after the Pueblo's capture, US. and North Korean negotiators reached a settlement
to resolve the crisis. Under the settlement's terms, the United States admitted
the ship's intrusion into North Korean territory, apologized for the action,
and pledged to cease any future such action. That day, the surviving 82
crewmen walked one by one across the "Bridge of No Return" at Panmunjon
to freedom in South Korea. They were hailed as heroes and returned home
to the United States in time for Christmas. Incidents between North Korea
and the United States continued in 1969, and in April 1969 a North Korean
MiG fighter shot down a US. Navy intelligence aircraft, killing all 31 men
aboard. In 1970, quiet returned to the demilitarized zone.

^1964 Poll Tax made unconstitutional in US
The South Dakota legislature becomes
the 38th to ratify the 24th Amendment to the US Constitution, which
outlaws the poll tax, giving it the necessary three-fourth majority
of the states. The amendment had been passed by Congress on 27 August
1962. The tax stemmed back to
the 1880s, when members of the burgeoning Populist party began to
build a potentially potent coalition of African American and lower
class white voters in the South. Across the region, planters, merchants,
and industrialists moved to preserve their power and pushed for the
passage of a deliberately prohibitive poll tax. The legislation, adopted
by a host of Southern states, proved all too effective, as scores
of African-Americans, as well as the "poorer sort" of whites, simply
could not afford to pay the tax and thus lost the right to vote. However,
thanks in large part to the efforts of Senator Spessard L. Holland
of Florida, the once recalcitrant Congress slowly came around to the
cause of outlawing the tax and passed the Twenty-fourth Amendment.
On January 23, 1964, the amended was ratified by the South Dakota
legislature,

Article XXIV.

Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States
to vote in any primary or other election for President or Vice President,
for electors for President or Vice President, or for Senator or Representative
in Congress, shall not be denied or abridged by the United States
or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.
Section 2. The Congress shall have power to
enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

1962 Kim Philby flees to the USSR from Beirut where he
was working as a journalist. He was a British intelligence officer in MI-6,
acting as a Soviet spy, until 1951 when suspicion fell on him and he was
relieved of his intelligence duties. He was dismissed from MI-6 in 1955.
In Moscow, Philby eventually reached the rank of colonel in the KGB. Philby
published a book, My Silent War (1968), detailing his exploits. 1962 Libya, Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia plan to form
United Arab Maghreb. 1961 Venezuela adopts constitution.
 es la vigésima sexta desde que se consiguió la independencia. 1961 Supreme Court rules cities and states have right
to censor films. 1960 Piccard and Walsh in bathyscaph
"Trieste" reach 10,900 meters in Mariana Trench. 1958
Dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez flees Venezuela, Larrazábal takes power. 1950 Israeli Knesset resolves that Jerusalem is the capital
of Israel. 1946 Rear Admiral Sidney W Souers, USNR,
becomes first director of CIA. 1943 Japanese Mount
Austen on Guadalcanal captured. 1943 British 8th
army marches into Tripoli. 1943 II Guerra mundial:
Los aliados adoptan en la Conferencia de Casablanca el principio de "rendición
incondicional" y una serie de acciones militares. 1942
Tank battle at Adzjedabia, African corps vs British army.
1942 Japanese troops occupy Rabaul New Britain.

^1941 Lindbergh to US Congress: Negotiate with
Hitler Charles
A. Lindbergh, a national hero since his nonstop solo flight across
the Atlantic, testifies before the House Foreign Affairs Committee
on the Lend-Lease policy-and suggests that the United States negotiate
a neutrality pact with Hitler. Lindbergh was born in 1902 in Detroit.
His father was a member of the House of Representatives. Lindbergh's
interest in aviation led him to flying school in Lincoln, Nebraska,
and later brought him work running stunt-flying tours and as an airmail
pilot. While regularly flying a route from St. Louis to Chicago, he
decided to try to become the first pilot to fly alone nonstop from
New York to Paris. He obtained the necessary financial backing from
a group of businessmen, and on 21 May 1927, after a flight that lasted
slightly over 33 hours, Lindbergh landed his plane, the Spirit of
St. Louis, in Paris. He won worldwide fame along with his $25'000
prize. In March 1932, Lindbergh
made headlines again, but this time because of the kidnapping of his
two-year-old son. The baby was later found dead, and the man convicted
of the crime, Bruno Hauptmann, was executed. To flee unwanted publicity,
Lindbergh and his wife, Anne Morrow, daughter of US. ambassador Dwight
Morrow, moved to Europe. During the mid-1930s, Lindbergh became familiar
with German advances in aviation and warned his US. counterparts of
Germany's growing air superiority. But Lindbergh also became enamored
of much of the German national "revitalization" he encountered, and
allowed himself to be decorated by Hitler's government, which drew
tremendous criticism back home.
Upon Lindbergh's return to the States, he agitated for neutrality
with Germany, and testified before Congress in opposition to the Lend-Lease
policy, which offered cash and military aid to countries friendly
to the United States in their war effort against the Axis powers.
His public denunciation of "the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt
Administration" as instigators of American intervention in the war,
as well as comments that smacked of anti-Semitism, lost him the support
of other isolationists. When, in 1941, President Roosevelt denounced
Lindbergh publicly, the aviator resigned from the Air Corps Reserve.
He eventually contributed to the war effort, though, flying 50 combat
missions over the Pacific. His participation in the war, along with
his promotion to brigadier general of the Air Force Reserve in 1954
by President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a popular Pulitzer Prize-winning
book, The Spirit of St. Louis,, and a movie based on his exploits
all worked to redeem him in the public's eyes.

^1863 Reb General Hood removed from command Confederate General John Bell
Hood is officially removed as commander of the Army of Tennessee.
He had requested the removal a few weeks before; the action closed
a sad chapter in the history of the Army of Tennessee. A Kentucky
native, Hood attended West Point and graduated in 1853. He served
in the frontier army until the outbreak of the Civil War. Hood resigned
his commission and became a colonel commanding the 4th Texas Infantry.
Hood's unit was sent to the Army of Northern Virginia, where it fought
during the Peninsular Campaign of 1862. Hood, now a brigadier general,
built a reputation as an aggressive field commander. He distinguished
himself during the Seven Days' battle in June, and was given command
of a division. His counterattack at Antietam in September may have
saved Robert E. Lee's army from total destruction.
After being severely wounded at Gettysburg in July 1863, Hood was
transferred to the Army of Tennessee. He was soon wounded again, losing
a leg at Chickamauga in September. Hood was promoted to corps commander
for the Atlanta campaign of 1864, and was elevated to commander of
the army upon the removal of Joseph Johnston in July. Over the next
five months, Hood presided over the near destruction of that great
Confederate army. He unsuccessfully attacked General William T. Sherman's
army three times near Atlanta, relinquished the city after a month-long
siege, then took his army back to Tennessee in the fall to draw Sherman
away from the deep South. Sherman dispatched part of his army to Tennessee,
and Hood lost two disastrous battles at Franklin and Nashville in
November and December 1864. There were about 65'000 soldiers in the
Army of Tennessee when Hood assumed command in July. On 01 January,
a generous assessment would count 18'000 men in the army. The Confederate
Army of Tennessee was no longer a viable fighting force.

1861 Agoston Haraszthy, first vintner in Sonoma Valley,
imports 100'000 cuttings of 350 varieties from Europe.1855
El Gobierno español anuncia a las Cortes la ruptura de relaciones con la
Santa Sede. 1845 The US Congress decides that all
national elections will be held on the first Tuesday after the first Monday
in November.1812 At 15:00 UT (09:00 local) the strongest
earthquake yet in US history (magnitude 8.4) occurs at the New Madrid fault
in then sparsely populated Missouri, with epicenter at 36º40"N
89º40'W. In would be surapassed by magnitude 8.7 earthquake at the
exact same spot on 07 February 1812 at 09:45 UT (03:45 local)1799
Los republicanos franceses denominan República Partenopea al antiguo reino
de Nápoles. 1793 2nd partition of Poland, between
Prussia and Russia.1731 Se suscribe un nuevo Tratado
de Viena, por el que Austria , Inglaterra y España se aliaron para lograr
que Carlos (Carlos III, rey de España) obtuviera la sucesión de Nápoles
y Sicilia. 1719 Principality of Liechtenstein created
within Holy Roman Empire by joining the two lordships of Vaduz and of Schellenberg.
Liechtenstein was included from 1806 to 1815 in the Rhine Confederation,
and from 1815 to 1866 in the German Confederation. In 1866 Liechtenstein
became independent. Its area is 160 sq.km.1677 Carlos
II, Rey de España y la reina madre nombran primer ministro a Juan José de
Austria. 1668 England, Netherlands and Sweden signs
Triple Alliance against French 1647 Scottish Presbyterians
sell captured Charles I to English parliament. 1631
France and Sweden sign anti-German Treaty of Bärwald.

^0638 Start of Muslim calendar
In is used in the Islamic world (except
Turkey, which uses the Gregorian calendar) and based on a year of
12 months, each month beginning approximately at the time of the New
Moon. (The Iranian Muslim calendar, however, is based on a solar year.)
The months are alternately 30 and 29 days long except for the 12th,
Dhu al-Hijjah, the length of which is varied in a 30-year cycle intended
to keep the calendar in step with the true phases of the Moon. In
11 years of this cycle, Dhu al-Hijjah has 30 days, and in the other
19 years it has 29. Thus the year has either 354 or 355 days. No months
are intercalated, so that the named months do not remain in the same
seasons but retrogress through the entire solar year every 32.5 solar
years. The date of the Hegira
is the starting point of the Muslim era. The Hegira ("flight," or
"emigration") is the Prophet
Muhammad's migration (AD 622) from Mecca to Medina in order to
escape persecution. It was 'Umar I, the second caliph, who in the
year AD 639 (ah 17) introduced the Hegira era (Ah, for Anno Hegirae).
'Umar started the first year Ah with the first day of the lunar month
of Muharram, which corresponded to 16 July 622 (0001 Muharram 01)

2005 Johnny Carson,
born on 23 October 1925, host of the NBC TV “Tonight Show” from 01 October
1962 to 22 May 1992.

2004 Alessandro Bassi, 42,
by jumping off a bridge near Fornovo, southwest of Parma, Italy. He was
a midlevel executive in the finance department at the headquarters of Parmalat
in nearby Collecchio, halfway between Parma and Fornovo. The huge dairy
and food company Parmalat is under investigation since it was forced into
bankruptcy after the 19 December 2003 Bank of America disclosure that a
bank account that Parmalat said held 4 billion euros was nonexistent. Bassi
was not under investigation, but he had close contact with Fausto Tonna,
the financial director, and Luciano Del Soldato and Gianfranco Bocchi, two
former chief financial officers, who are in jail, as is Calisto Tanzi, 65,
the founder of Parmalat.

2004 The two US soldiers,
pilots, aboard a U.S. Army OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopter of the 101st Airborne
Division, which crashes at 20:30 (17:30 UT) near Qayyarah, Iraq.

2004 At least 51 persons, in Srirangam near Tiruchi, Tamil
Nadu state, India, after a short circuit sets fire to a makeshift palm-frond
hall at a wedding ceremony attended by about 500 persons. Some die in the
stampede to escape through the hall's narrow entrance.

2004
At least nine persons, when a bus carrying devotees from Tirupati,
Tamil Nadu state, India, rolls down 30 meters into a ravine on the Ghat
Road, 94 km from its destination in Salem, in the afternoon At least 17
are injured.

2003
Israeli Corporal Ronald Berrer, 20, from Rehovoth; and
Staff Sergeant Ya'akov Naim, 20, from Kfar Monash; and
Corporal Asaf Bitan, 19, from Afula; [left to right
photos >] shot from ambush at 20:30 in the West Bank. All three
are of the Lavie battalion, which was securing the Kvasim Junction, between
the village of Yatta and Hebron's industrial zone, 5 km south of Hebron's
industrial zone on the road between the enclave settlements Kiryat Arba
and Beit Haggai.
2003 Raymond Poore Jr., 43, is found by his wife at 18:00 in their
Winchester VA home, shot dead, and with dog bites and scratches. He had
phoned his wife at work, telling her that their dog had bitten him and that
he was going to kill it. It is thought that Poore must have beaten the 14-kg
shar-pei with the gun that went off. The stock of the weapon, a combination
rifle and shotgun, was broken and there appeared to be blood and dog hair
on it. The dog survives.

2003 Labour Minister Ahmad Mohamed
Khalif; and pilots Abdikadir Mahat Kuno and Sammy Mungai, as 24-seat
Gulfstream G1 plane 5YEMJ , with 13 aboard, chartered for VIPs, crashes
at 17:20 immediately after hitting a pothole in the poorly maintained runway
which made it take off with insufficient airspeed from Busia, Kenya. Khalif
and three other passengers were newly appointed ministers (Raphael Tuju
of Information and Tourism, Martha Karua of Water Resources, and Linah Kilimo
of State in the Office of the Vice Fresident) of the government of President
Mwai Kibaki, 71 (Democratic Party of Kenya), whose National Rainbow Coalition
(NaRC, a discordant coalition of KANU defectors and 14 former opposition
parties) election victory on 27 December 2002 ended nearly 24 years of rule
by Daniel Arap Moi and the continuous rule by his Kenya African National
Union (KANU) party since independence in 1963. They were returning from
a celebration of their appointment. Khalif, a softly spoken former journalist
and long-term head of the Supreme Council of Kenya Muslims, was viewed as
a moderate politician and was a major shareholder of Iqra FM, a Muslim radio
station based in Nairobi. Pilot Kuno was the son of millionaire Mahat Kuno
Roble. Kibaki spent the closing weeks of the election campaign in a London
hospital, after breaking an arm, dislocating an ankle and breaking his neck
in a road accident on 03 December 2002. He was readmitted to hospital on
20 January 2003, suffering from a blood clot and high blood pressure.

^2002: 21 friendly Afghans, in brutal mistake
by US elite special forces The
US troops think that they are attacking al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in
a weapons cache in the remote village Hazer Qadam, in the Kandahar region.
27 surviving Afghans are taken prisoner, brutally beaten, and would only
be released on 05 February 2002, when the US finally admits the mistake,
after two weeks of obsfuscation.  On 10 February 2002, Afghans
taken prisoner by US forces in two 23 January 2002 night raids in
Oruzgan, Afghanistan, say that they were brutalized by US soldiers,
despite their protests that they supported the leader of the interim government,
Hamid Karzai. The men were among 27
Afghans who were released on 07 February 2002 after 16 days' detention in
the US base in Kandahar, about 250 km southwest of Oruzgan. The Pentagon
has reluctantly acknowledged that the raids were conducted in error, apparently
because of flawed intelligence, and that the prisoners were neither members
of Al Qaeda nor Taliban fighters. Local officials put the death toll at
21; the Pentagon admits that at least 15 Afghans were killed.
The accounts of harsh treatment from
four of the prisoners, the district police chief among them, give the lie
to the attempted cover-up by the US military, which now at last is investigating..
Abdul Rauf, 60, the police chief in this
small mountain town, said he was beaten, kicked until his ribs cracked and
punched by American soldiers when they stormed the district headquarters
in the night of Jan. 23-24 and took him and his men prisoner.
An American officer apologized to him when he was released, he said, asking
forgiveness and saying their capture had been a mistake.
"I can never forgive them," Mr. Rauf said in an interview today as he lay
on cushions at his home, still clearly suffering from his ordeal. "Why did
they bomb us? Why did they do this?"
United States Special Forces stormed two compounds in Oruzgan within minutes:
the local school, where men from the government disarmament commission had
made their base, and the district civilian and police headquarters, where
30 police guards were based and 6 men were in the jail. Both compounds had
storerooms still full of weapons left behind or captured from the Taliban.
The school was crowded with four-wheel-drive vehicles and a truck mounted
with an antiaircraft gun. Among the
men killed in the school were two of Mr. Karzai's top commanders, while
in the district headquarters, two guards were killed. Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld admitted last week that US forces may have
killed local allies in the raid. "There
is no need for more US raids," says Azizullah Agha, the new head of the
Afghan government disarmament commission here, who lost nine members of
his own family in a US bombing in November. "If for example we have information
that the Taliban leader Mullah Omar is somewhere, I can go there myself
to negotiate or send guards." "I do
not know why they are making so many mistakes," said Mr. Agha, who is 58.
He had accepted previous mistakes because they had been close to Taliban
positions, he said. "But this latest one was a very big mistake," he continued.
"There were no Al Qaeda or Taliban. There was just a commission that is
working for the government, collecting weapons."
The governor of Oruzgan Province, Jan Muhammad, also expressed anger in
an interview in the provincial capital, Tirin Kot. He said he had 30 soldiers
from Special Forces working with him and living in his headquarters while
250 km away other Americans were killing his commanders.
Chief Rauf said he was asleep with his guards in the district office when
shouts and gunfire woke him at 03:00. He recognized American voices outside
and went out, calling out in Pashto to the troops.
"I was shouting `Dost! Dost!' — `We are friends!' — but they were not listening,"
he said. "And I was telling my men that they are friends, and US soldiers
came and started to beat me. I was down on my knees, bent over, and they
kicked me in the chest. I heard my ribs crack. Then I was lying on my side
and they kicked me in the back, in the kidneys, and I fainted." He came
round to find his hands tied and one of his men dead on the ground. His
men surrendered without a fight, Mr. Rauf said.
Two of his men interviewed today, Allah Noor, 40, and Ziauddin, 50, looked
like the village farmers they were until they joined the police as guards
after the Taliban were ousted. A third guard, Aktar Muhammad, was still
in his teens. All four said that US
soldiers beat and punched them in the district headquarters before their
hands and feet were bound and they were loaded on helicopters and flown
to the base in Kandahar. There they were made to lie face down on a hangar
floor and for the rest of the night were subjected to violent blows and
kicking, they said. "They were walking
on our backs, kicking us," Mr. Rauf said. As he muttered a prayer, a soldier
hit him on the back of the head, smashing his nose against the ground. His
nose still bears the marks of a cut. Mr. Ziauddin, who uses only one name,
was also kicked in the head, he said, and he showed a tooth loosened as
his head hit the floor. Mr. Muhammad
said he was picked up and thrown on the ground three times by soldiers,
until on the third time he fainted from a blow to the head. "I was so afraid
I did not expect to remain alive and see my family again," he said. In the
morning he was put with the other prisoners in a large cage, with wooden
bars and a canvas roof. Two days later
he was pulled out and put in solitary confinement in a metal shipping container
for eight days and underwent an aggressive interrogation. Two US soldiers
guarded the open door and ordered him to sit on the floor and keep his eyes
down. After the first day the beating
stopped, possibly because they all told their interrogators they were supporters
of Mr. Karzai. At the end of the 16
days they were told they would be released and given new clothes, wool hats
and boots. A US officer put his hands together in a gesture of apology as
a translator told them it had been mistake.
Relatives of the dead men are angry and are demanding to know who fed the
Americans the wrong information. "We are having a lot of trouble convincing
them it was a mistake," they say. No
one will name any suspects, but officials here insist that despite local
rivalries, no person from Oruzgan would have had the ear of the US forces
to request such a raid. "A simple apology will not solve this," Mr. Irfani
said. "The Americans know who informed them, and that man is an enemy of
this government and of this country. He should be handed over to this administration
and executed."

2001 Motti Dayan, 29, and Etgar Zeituni,
34, Israelis murdered in Tul Karm, West Bank. They
owned "Yuppies" restaurant on Sheinkin Street in Tel Aviv. Police investigating
the murder said the two went to Tul Karm with an Arab Israeli friend from
Baka al-Garbiyeh, Fuad Mohammed who owns the produce store from which Yuppies
gets its fruit and vegetables. The three planned to do some shopping in
Tul Karm, taking advantage of the low prices in the territories due to the
economic damage caused by the Israeli repression of the al-Aqsa Intifada.
After finishing shopping for earthenware
jars and flowers at about 16:00 P.M., they stopped to eat at Abu Nidal restaurant
in Tul Karm. While they were there, a group of masked Palestinians suddenly
entered and removed the three Israelis at gunpoint. They put the Israelis
into a car and drove northeast, stopping on the border of Area A (Palestinian-controlled
territory), between the village of Ikhtaba and the Nur a-Shams refugee camp.
There, they shot the two Jews in the head at close range, apparently with
rifles. Mohammed was unharmed. The killers then threw both Mohammed and
the bodies out of the car and fled. Mohammed and the bodies were later found
by the Palestinian Preventive Security Service and handed them over to the
Israel Defense Forces. Mohammed was
handed over to the Shin Bet security service for questioning. Investigators
are trying to determine whether he was involved in the murder or an innocent
victim. As far as is known, he made no effort to avoid being returned to
Israel, and Israeli security sources think it likely the attack was spontaneous
rather than planned. By the time the Israelis entered the restaurant, it
was probably public knowledge that they were in town.
Hamas claimed responsibility for the killing, and said it had filmed the
two Israelis being kidnapped and executed. "We in the Iz a Din al Kassam
[Hamas's military wing] are responsible for the kidnapping of the two Israeli
soldiers, members of Israel's public security service Shin Bet, near Tul
Karm," said a caller to Reuters news agency, claiming to belong to the group.
"After kidnapping them, they were filmed and killed." Israeli
security officials were furious at what they termed the two murdered Israelis'
"irresponsibility." There has been a blanket ban on Israelis entering Area
A since the outbreak of the Intifada in October. Nevertheless, many mainly
Arab Israelis have continued to do so since IDF road blocks are far from
being hermetic. In some cases where Jews ignored the ban Palestinian police
have returned them safely, but in other cases, the Jews have been killed.
Tul Karm in particular has been tense since 01 January, when Israel assassinated
the secretary general of the local Fatah chapter, Dr. Thabet Thabet.

1999 Shivani Bhatnagar, correspondent of Indian Express,
found murdered in her East Delhi apartment.1998 Hilla Limann
President of Ghana in (1979-81)1998 Joseph Conigliario,
mafioso of the DeCavalcante “family” in New Jersey, involved
in loan-sharking, extortion, and narcotics distribution. shot. On 19 December
2002, Martin Lewis and Joseph Brideson, would be convicted of the murder;
Ruben Malave (who helped hide Lewis after the murder) and Brideson's cousin
New York detective Michael Silvestri, 46 (who removed evidence and falsified
police reports), would be conviceted as accessories after the fact. All
four were also members of the DeCavalcante crime “family”.1995 Gregorio Ordóñez, candidato por el PP a la alcaldía
de San Sebastián, asesinado por ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) en San Sebastián
de un tiro en la cabeza.
^1991 Darrell Lunsford, a county constable
in Garrison, Texas, is killed after pulling over a traffic violator.
His murder was remarkable because it was
captured on a camera set up in Lunsford's patrol vehicle. The videotape
evidence led to the conviction of the three men who beat, kicked, and stabbed
the officer to death along the East Texas highway. Lunsford pulled over
a vehicle with Maine license plates and turned on the video camera installed
on his front dashboard. He appeared to have asked the three men in the car
to open the trunk. However, when the men got out of the car they tackled
Lunsford and stabbed him in the neck. The men took his gun, badge, and wallet
and drove off in their car. Later that night, Reynaldo Villarreal was picked
up by officers as he was walking a few miles from the murder site. His brother,
Baldemar, and another man, Jesse Zambrano, were also arrested a short time
later. At the trial of the three men, the jury watched the videotape and
all were convicted. The videotaped murder of Lunsford has ushered in a new
era. Video cameras have become ubiquitous in police cars, and can be a potent
law-enforcement tool.
1989 Salvador Felipe Jacinto Dalí
y Domenech, Spanish Surrealist painter and printmaker born on 11 May 1904.MORE
ON DALI AT ART 4 JANUARY
with links to images.1986: 38 personas en el incendio de
un hotel de lujo en Nueva Delhi (India).1986 Joseph
Beuys, German Conceptual artist born on 12 May 1921.
MORE
ON BEUYS AT ART 4 JANUARY
with links to images.1964 Pierre Laebens, 44; Nicolas Hardy,
45; Gérard Defever, 44; Belgian priests of the Oblates of Mary
Immaculate (O.M.I.), murdered in Congo during the mulelist rebellion. —(080117) 1950 George Orwell, 46, British novelist, in London 1947 Pierre Bonnard, French Nabi painter born on 03 October
1867.  MORE
ON BONNARD AT ART 4 JANUARY
with links to images.1944 Edvard Munch, Norwegian
painter born on 12 December 1863.  MORE
ON MUNCH AT ART 4 JANUARY
with links to images.

^1870: Some 50 children, 90 women, 37 men, sleeping
peaceful Blackfeet, massacred by US soldiers.
Declaring he did not care whether or
not it was the rebellious band of Indians he had been searching for,
Colonel Eugene Baker orders his men to attack a sleeping camp of peaceful
Blackfeet along the Marias River in northern Montana. The previous
fall, Malcolm Clarke, an influential Montana rancher, had accused
a Blackfeet warrior named Owl Child of stealing some of his horses;
he punished the proud brave with a brutal whipping. In retribution,
Owl Child and several allies murdered Clarke and his son at their
home near Helena, and then fled north to join a band of rebellious
Blackfeet under the leadership of Mountain Chief. Outraged and frightened,
Montanans demanded that Owl Child and his followers be punished, and
the government responded by ordering the forces garrisoned under Major
Eugene Baker at Fort Ellis (near modern-day Bozeman, Montana) to strike
back. Strengthening his cavalry units with two infantry groups from
Fort Shaw near Great Falls, Baker led his troops out into sub-zero
winter weather and headed north in search of Mountain Chief's band.
Soldiers later reported that Baker drank a great deal throughout the
march. On January 22, Baker discovered an Indian village along the
Marias River, and, postponing his attack until the following morning,
spent the evening drinking heavily.
At daybreak on the morning of 23 January 1870, Baker ordered his men
to surround the camp in preparation for attack. As the darkness faded,
Baker's scout, Joe Kipp, recognized that the painted designs on the
buffalo-skin lodges were those of a peaceful band of Blackfeet led
by Heavy Runner. Mountain Chief and Owl Child, Kipp quickly realized,
must have gotten wind of the approaching soldiers and moved their
winter camp elsewhere. Kipp rushed to tell Baker that they had the
wrong Indians, but Baker reportedly replied, "That makes no difference,
one band or another of them; they are all Piegans [Blackfeet] and
we will attack them." Baker then ordered a sergeant to shoot Kipp
if he tried to warn the sleeping camp of Blackfeet and gave the command
to attack. Baker's soldiers began blindly firing into the village,
catching the peaceful Indians utterly unaware and defenseless. By
the time the brutal attack was over, Baker and his men had, by the
best estimate, murdered 37 men, 90 women, and 50 children. Knocking
down lodges with frightened survivors inside, the soldiers set them
on fire, burnt some of the Blackfeet alive, and then burned the band's
meager supplies of food for the winter. Baker initially captured about
140 women and children as prisoners to take back to Fort Ellis, but
when he discovered many were ill with smallpox, he abandoned them
to face the deadly winter without food or shelter.
When word of the Baker Massacre (now known as the Marias Massacre)
reached the east, many Americans were outraged. One angry congressman
denounced Baker, saying "civilization shudders at horrors like this."
Baker's superiors, however, supported his actions, as did the people
of Montana, with one journalist calling Baker's critics "namby-pamby,
sniffling old maid sentimentalists." Neither Baker nor his men faced
a court martial or any other disciplinary actions. However, the public
outrage over the massacre did derail the growing movement to transfer
control of Indian affairs from the Department of Interior to the War
Department.  President Ulysses S. Grant decreed that henceforth
all Indian agents would be civilians rather than soldiers.

1864 Michele Puccini, 50, composer.

^1843 Friedrich Heinrich
Karl de La Motte baron Fouqué, German novelist
and playwright born on 12 February 1777, who is rememberedchiefly
as the author of the popular fairy tale Undine
(1811) [English
translation]. A descendant
of French aristocrats, Fouqué expressed in his writings heroic
ideals of chivalry designed to arouse a sense of German tradition
and national character in his contemporaries during the Napoleonic
era. His ideas, based on the view of linguistic development first
conceived by the philosopher J.G. Fichte [19 May 1762 – 27
Jan 1814], stressed the influence of the mother tongue in shaping
the mind. A prolific writer, Fouqué
gathered much of his material from Scandinavian sagas and myths. His
dramatic trilogy, Der Held des Nordens (1808–1810),
is the first modern dramatic treatment of the Nibelung story and a
precedent for the later dramas of Friedrich Hebbel and the operas
of Richard Wagner. His most lasting success, however, has been the
story of Undine, a water sprite who marries the knight Hildebrand
to acquire a soul and thus become human but who later loses this love
to the treacheries of her uncle Kuhleborn and the lady Berthulda.
Although Fouqué's works were at first enthusiastically received,
after 1820 they rapidly passed out of fashion. Fouqué died
in poverty after belated recognition by Frederick William IV.

1810 John Hoppner, English painter born on 04 April 1758.
 MORE
ON HOPPNER AT ART 4 JANUARY
with links to images. 1806 William Pitt the Younger,
46, PM Great Britain (1783-1806) 1785 Stewart,
mathematician.1760 Gian Antonio Guardi, Italian
painter born in 1698.  MORE
ON GUARDI AT ART 4 JANUARY
with links to images.1744 Giambattista Vico, filósofo
italiano.1648 Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla, dramaturgo
español.1556 Some 830'000 in deadliest earthquake
recorded in history, estimated at magnitude 8, in Shansi, China. The second
deadliest was the 7.5 magnitude earthquake of 27 July 1976 in Tangshan,
China, which may have killed 400'000 more than the Communist dictature's
figure of 255'000. 1516 Ferdinand II, 63, king of
Aragon/Sicily

^1964 The 24th
Amendment to the US
Constitution is ratified by the South Dakota legislature,
becoming the law of the land. It
prohibits the collection of poll taxes in national elections . Passage
of the amendment affected voting in Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas,
Texas, and Virginia. As President Lyndon Johnson said: Nothing
is so valuable as liberty and nothing is so necessary to liberty as
the freedom to vote without bans or barriers....There can be no one
too poor to vote.
Payment of the tax stood as a potent prerequisite, and sometimes outright
barrier, to voting in national elections. And, for the Southern Democrats
who designed and helped pass the tax in a number of Southern states
during the 1880s and 1890s, this was precisely the point: the poll
tax was a blunt tool for barring poverty-stricken African-Americans
and whites from participating in the electoral process. As such, the
tax was also a means for stemming the rise of the Populist Party,
which had used a racially mixed coalition of poor and lower class
voters to gain a place on the national stage. Attempts to roll back
the poll tax were generally blocked in the Senate. However, in 1949,
Senator Spessard L. Holland of Florida took up the cause of killing
the tax forever via a constitutional amendment. When the Senate finally
passed the Twenty-Fourth Amendment in 1962, the poll tax remained
in effect in five Southern states: Virginia, Texas, Mississippi, Arkansas
and Alabama. After 1964, it was constitutionally legal in none.

1946 José Arnoldo Alemán Lacayo, político y presidente
de Nicaragua.1938 Hans-Georg Kern Georg Baselitz,
in Deutschbaselitz, in what would be East Germany.  MORE
ON “BASELITZ” AT ART 4 JANUARY with links to images.

^1930 Derek Walcott, poet and
playwright, in St. Lucia, in the Carribbean.
Walcott will win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992. Walcott's
family descended from slaves in the West Indies, and the legacy of
slavery is a common theme in his work. Both his parents were schoolteachers
and encouraged a love of reading in their three children. When Walcott's
father died, his mother raised the family on her own.
Walcott knew early on he wanted to be a writer: His first book of
poems was published when he was only 18. He continued writing and
began teaching as well. Deeply interested in theater as well as poetry,
he received a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation in 1957, which
allowed him to study with a prominent director in New York for two
years. In New York, Walcott founded the Trinidad Theater Workshop.
A prolific poet, Walcott published
In a Green Night: Poems 1948-1960 in 1962, Selected Poems
in 1964, The Castaway in 1965, and The Gulf in 1969.
His lush style explores multicultural tensions and questions of identity.
Meanwhile, he continued his work in the theater, with plays like Ti-Jean
and His Brothers (produced in 1958), Dream on Monkey Mountain
(produced 1967), and Pantomime (produced 1978). He wrote
more than 30 plays while continuing to publish poetry collections
regularly. His book-length poem Omeros, published in 1990,
evokes Homer's Odyssey in the environment of the Caribbean.
Walcott was the first Caribbean writer to win the Nobel Prize.

1924 James Lighthill, mathematician.1917
Noël Salomon, historiador francés.1899 Joseph Nathan
Kane, historian, alive to celebrate his birthday in 2001. Author
of Famous First Facts: A Record of First Happenings, Discoveries, and
Inventions in American History.  Facts About the Presidents 1898 Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein, Russian film director
(Battleship Potemkin) who died on 11 February 1948. 1887
Miklós Kállay premier Hungary (1942-44)1867 Sergius,
Russian Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow who died on 15 May 1944.
1862 David Hilbert, Konigsberg, East Prussia, mathematician who
died on 14 February 1943.1846 Lucio Rossi, Italian
artist who died on 29 October 1913. 1840 Abbe, mathematician.1832 Édouard Manet, French Realist Impressionist painter
and printmaker who died on 30 April 1883.  MORE
ON MANET AT ART 4 JANUARY
with links to images.1829 Anton Seitz, German artist
who died on 27 November 1900.1810 John Rogers Herbert,
English painter who died on 17 March 1890.  MORE
ON HERBERT AT ART 4 JANUARY
with links to images. 1806 Minding, mathematician.1789 Georgetown University is founded by Father John
Carroll, 54, in Washington DC, the first Roman Catholic college established
in the US. It has always been open to people of all faiths (William
J. Clinton is an alumnus: he graduated in 1968 with a degree in international
affairs). 1783 Marie-Henri
Beyle Stendhal, à Grenoble. Il est mort le 23 mars
1842,  STENDHAL ONLINE: Armance
ou Quelques scènes dun salon de Paris en 1827 
Le
Rouge et le Noir: chronique de XIXe siècle  Racine
et Shakespeare1767 Jeanne-Elisabeth Gabiou Chaudet
Husson, French painter who died on 18 April 1832. — more1737 John Hancock, US Independence statesman who died on
08 October 1793. 1719 Landen, mathematician.

^1656 Lettres
Provinciales, by Blaise
Pascal, 33, the first of his 18 is published, the majority of
which attacked the Jesuit theories of grace and moral theology. ^ Pascal was a French
mathematician,
writer, religious philosopher, and physicist. The son of a judge in
the French tax court, at age 19 Pascal invented a calculating device
to help his father's tax computations. The counting device relied
on a series of wheels divided into 10 parts each, representing the
integers 0-9. The wheels, which were connected by gears and turned
by a stylus, kept track of sums as numbers were added and subtracted.
He made important contributions to geometry, calculus, and developed
the theory of probability. In physics, Pascal's law is the basis for
all modern hydraulic operations.
On 23 November 1654, Pascal experienced a Christian conversion that
would cause his outstanding scientific work to take second place in
his pursuits. For the rest of his life Pascal carried around a piece
of parchment sewn into his coat describing how he had experienced
God's forgiveness of his sins. From that day forward, Blaise Pascal
decided he must live only for God. He started out by giving much more
to the poor. Pascal closely
associated himself with the Jansenists, a group of Catholics that
emphasized morality in all aspects of life. In 1657 Pascal published
his Provincial Letters which criticized the moral teaching of the
Jesuits, the rationalism of Descartes, and Montaigne's skepticism,
and urged a return to the Augustine's doctrine of grace. Voltaire
described the collection as "the first work of genius to appear in
France", and it continues to be recognized as remarkably beautiful
French literature. Pascal also
wrote that we come to know God's truth not only by reason, but even
more through the heart by faith. It is through our heart that we come
to know God and to love Him. It is by faith that we we can come to
know Christ — and God alone gives us faith. Dans
la nuit du 23 novembre 1654, Blaise
Pascal, 31 ans, éprouve une violente expérience mystique. Le savant
va dès lors se rapprocher des jansénistes de Port-Royal
et se consacrer à la réflexion théologique. Participant à la querelle
des jansénistes et des jésuites, il publie deux ans plus tard un célèbre
pamphlet, Les
Provinciales ou Les lettres écrites par Louis de Montalte à un Provincial
de ses Amis et aux RR. PP. Jésuites sur le Sujet de la Morale, et
de la Politique de ces Pères He
died on 19 August 1662.
PASCAL ONLINE (in English translations): Thoughts,
Thoughts,
Thoughts,
The
Provincial Letters

1622 Abraham Arend Diepraam, Dutch painter who died in
July 1670. — links
to images.1600 Alexandre Keerinck (or Kierings,
Carings), Flemish artist who died in 1652.1578 Bartolomeo
Schedoni, Italian artist who died on 23 December 1615. 
MORE
ON SCHEDONI AT ART 4 JANUARY with links to images.